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Solomon Grundy (Cyrus Gold)
Born on a Monday. Christened on Tuesday. Married on Wednesday. Took ill on Thursday. Worse on Friday. Died on Saturday. Buried on Sunday. Is this the end of Solomon Grundy? History Solomon Grundy consistently haunts Gotham City, and has been known to take residence in the Gotham sewer system. In the early years, his primary enemy was Alan Scott, the original Green Lantern, though he also fought Batman as well. During The Long Halloween, he struck up an odd kinship with Harvey Dent, as Dent was on the path to becoming Two-Face. Grundy even joined Dent's team of "costumed freaks" that was responsible for the deaths of Gotham city crime lords such as Carmine Falcone and his successor Sofia. Grundy's appearances were not limited to Gotham, however. He fought Superman several times in Metropolis. For a time, a new innocent, child-like Grundy lurked in the sewers of Opal City, where he was befriended by Starman Jack Knight, who affectionately referred to him as Solly. Solly also became friends with Starman Mikaal Tomas, and sacrificed himself to save Mikaal from being crushed by a collapsing building. This left Grundy in critical condition. In return for his sacrifice (as well as trying to stop the old Grundy from reemerging), Jack and Ted Knight and Alan Scott enlisted the aid of the Floronic Man, who like Grundy was a creature of The Green, to try and save his life. Woodrue was accompanied by Batman, and had them all eat seeds, allowing them to enter the consciousness of Grundy in order to pull out the Solly aspect of Grundy's personality, rather than one of Grundy's evil versions. Unfortunately the bad aspects of Grundy were too overwhelming and the Solly version couldn't be saved. When the heroes returned to the normal world, Grundy disappeared. Grundy's next appearance saw the return of his malicious persona, where he was found by Jack Knight on a strange blue planet, apparently having landed there when he was cast into orbit by Alan Scott and Dr. Fate in the 40's. The crash on the planet killed him, apparently allowing him to resurrect with a different body on Earth. This suggests that Grundy's consciousness may be able to inhabit multiple bodies, though only one at a time. This new Grundy had a much higher intelligence than normal, but claimed to have no knowledge of Jack Knight or his previous exploits on earth since he was cast into orbit. This version of Grundy was summarily destroyed.15 Mikaal Tomas was the next to battle Grundy. This Grundy displayed an average intelligence and was once again malicious. However, when as assassin (Frankie Soul) tried to take out Mikaal with a sniper rifle, Grundy sensed the coming shot and stepped in front of it, sacrificing himself once again to save Mikaal. With his dying words Grundy claimed that this was not a result of the Solly personality reemerging, but was unable to explain why he had done it. Grundy next joined the new Injustice Society, led by Johnny Sorrow and fought the JSA once again. During the Joker's Last Laugh, Grundy was jokerized and fought the JSA again. It is known that Grundy hid out for a time in the Arrowcave, the long abandoned former headquarters of the Green Arrow. While searching for artifacts of his former life, Green Arrow and his former ward Arsenal stumbled onto Grundy's new hideout, where he tried to kill them. Ollie notes that this version seems much more violent, and manages to kill him by choking him with the string to his broken bow. Later, Arrow helped a Dr. Chrissie Cavendish, a S.T.A.R. Labs employee who claimed she was the great, great grand-daughter of the man the monster spawned from, to find and cure him. Her cure, however, warped her into a monster much worse than Grundy. Green Arrow subdued Cavendish, and decided it was best to leave Grundy to be. Grundy helped attack Superman and Batman when a bounty was placed on both of them by President Lex Luthor, although he was being mindcontrolled by Gorilla Grodd at the time. He was defeated by Batman. During the Infinite Crisis in Villains United, Grundy joined the Secret Society of Super-Villains. He turned on them briefly when Rag Doll of the Secret Six compared their disfigurement and convinced Grundy to join his side. In the Battle of Metropolis, Grundy fought alongside the rest of the Society again, but was killed once more by Superboy-Prime, along with the Blood Pack. Solomon Grundy returned from this death to fight the Justice League of America, in a much more advanced form. He is depicted as intelligent and sophisticated, seemingly serving as the brains behind a complex operation to willingly transfer Professor Ivo's immortality to Grundy. Through the interference of the Red Tornado, his wife, and the Justice League, Grundy's scheme failed to achieve its ends. In later appearances, he seemed to have lost this intelligence. He was exiled to the Prison Planet during Salvation Run, where a large number of supervillains were exported several lightyears into space, and left to fend for themselves on a foreign planet. He joined Lex Luthor's camp, but was killed in the gigantic Parademon raid shortly before the villains could escape. Blackest Night Even millions of miles away from Earth, upon his death Cyrus Gold was resurrected once more in Slaughter Swamp with a strange new level of perception. Noticing that Gotham City had changed much, Gold went to a mobile home, where he killed the owner. Walking to his former house, he had a flashback to his murdering his Uncle John, expressing remorse over it. Suddenly, Cyrus remembered his past as Solomon Grundy, and becomes terrified of dying and becoming Solomon Grundy again. He attacks a woman who offered him help, then assaulting two police officers who try to stop him. In the process, Cyrus is shot through the chest, discovering that he still has no physical heart. Running away, he jumps into the highway, where he is run down and killed. Gold is resurrected as Solomon Grundy again, and flees into the sewers. A week later, he encounters Killer Croc, battling him and eventually breaking his jaw. At dawn of Sunday, Grundy transforms back into Cyrus Gold at the cemetary which holds his tombstone. Here, he is found by the Phantom Stranger, who became aware of his resurrection and change last week. He is unable to help Cyrus in these changes, but had drafted Green Lantern Alan Scott into helping. Though Green Lantern was hesitant to help, the Stranger insisted: there was an unholy night coming, and it would be best if Solomon Grundy were gone before another could claim him for themselves. Grundy and Alan Scott are now on a quest for Grundy's redemption. It is his mission to find the person who is responsible for killing him the first time... and forgive them. Cyrus discovers shockingly that in a fit of madness, he actually committed suicide in Slaughter Swamp, taking his own life... he is unable to forgive himself, and pass on to the next world. Instead, he receives a Black Lantern Ring and is commanded to RISE. His corpse is destroyed when Bizarro drives it into the sun. With Cyrus Gold in Hell, and Solomon Grundy's corpse destroyed, the curse on Solomon Grundy is finally broken. He is no more. Powers and Abilities Powers: *Superhuman Strength: Solomon Grundy possesses tremendous strength and stamina, the level of which varies with his different incarnations. Sometimes, he can be held by a group of normal humans. On other occasions, even Superman has not been able to defeat him. *Superhuman Stamina: Grundy can perform physically strenuous tasks for an indeterminate period of time before tiring. *Mystical Invulnerability: The weird elemental energy that imbues his form with pseudo-life makes him virtually indestructible - he is impervious to bullets, fire, and extreme cold, and can survive indefinitely without food, water, or oxygen. The only thing that has ever been able to hurt him was the Mist's special toxins, developed to take out Grundy's plant tissue body. *Resurrection: Even when he is destroyed, he has always been reborn sooner or later. The soul of Cyrus Gold enjoys his pseudo-life through Grundy, even though Gold's whole personality is never present in Grundy's "life." Grundy's personality differs from incarnation to incarnation, but he seems to retain some memories of his experiences from one time to the next. *Energy Absorption/Manipulation: Grundy has also proven to be able to absorb certain forms of energy and manipulate them at will. This ability has always been subconscious to the point of being accidental, though, but it would suggest that Grundy is even more powerful than he has the intelligence to realize. *Chlorokinesis: The version of Grundy that ended up on the blue planet gained normal human intelligence, and made contact with The Green, thereby being able to control the planet's plant life. In the Solomon Grundy series, Grundy has been seen resisting the mind control kiss that Poison Ivy uses on people. In addition, he is able to kill all plant life that he touches. Grundy also possess some type of poison that he gave to Poison Ivy through a kiss. It seems she was just knocked out by the poison. Paraphernalia Weapons *Black Lantern Ring